For the most part, presenters and winners made light of the current economic downturn. As the speaker for Print & Zine Webby winner Plastic.com joked in his five-word acceptance speech, “Bankruptcy never felt so good.”

The night’s biggest winner was VolunteerMatch, which won the Webby for both the best activism site, and for best services.

Other winners included local favorite community bulletin board site Craig’s List for community, the popular search engine Google.com for “best practices,” Inside.com for best news site, satirical newsletter The Onion for best humor site, and Peter Pan’s Home Page for best Weird site.

Swell.com, the winners for best sports site, even recognized pre-show commentator and ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson in their acceptance speech, recognizing “Sam Donaldson, dude, gnarly toupe.”

This year’s telecast also featured the first-ever Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to Ray Tomlinson and Douglas Engelbart, two of the pioneers in the development of the modern computer experience. Tomlinson is credited with inventing e-mail, Engelbart with the mouse. Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel, presented the duo their awards.

After the ceremony, the Opera House was converted into a multi-level fun house as attendees were invited to indulge in an elaborate post-party. Each of the building’s four floors was filled with refreshments, as well as Webby “bytes,” food samples from a number of the aree’s best restaurants.

The Webby awards are picked and presented by members of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a 350-person organization whose eclectic members include popular figures from business, entertainment, and politics.

—Staff writer Michelle F. Kung can be reached at mkung@fas.harvard.edu.